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4 min read 
Crypto exchanges are changing.
They used to be like the old saloons in the wild West: full of scams, hacks, and pure anonymity.
However, these days exchanges are more like banks: cold wallet vaults and full KYC / AML.
It may be great for attracting the masses to crypto, but what about people who value financial privacy — and stay far away from any KYC?
Up until this year, if you valued your financial privacy, one of your tools was localbitcoins.com — a stalwart exchange offering peer-to-peer crypto exchanges with people around the world.
But that all ended. Localbitcoins.com now requires full KYC. Anonymity and privacy in the financial world are under attack. Where can we turn now?
There’s a new exchange in town: local.bitcoin.com
Local.bitcoin.com is a hassle-free P2P experience for privacy advocates and general users alike.
The interview
The exchange intrigued me so much that I contacted Bitcoin.com for an interview. Jason Sheman responded.
Jason is the Product Manager of Media at Bitcoin.com.
He’s an intelligent, articulate chap who I once met at a weeklong blockchain event in 2018.
It was good to re-connect, catch up on life and the state of blockchain since then, before launching into our local.bitcoin.com interview.
We sailed through the interview, buoyant on the innovation we’ve both seen during the years in crypto.
We had a fascinating discussion on cryptocurrencies, privacy, and where crypto exchanges are at going into the 2020’s — a whole new decade of innovation for crypto (as covered in my article about Bitcoin’s future).
Here is the video.
In a nutshell:
- local.bitcoin.com has been up since June 2019.
- They are a local peer-2-peer exchange for Bitcoincash.
- You can trade P2P from anywhere in the world.
- The process is simple and user-friendly.
And No KYC Required. A tremendous win for advocates of financial privacy.
But is it the best? Let’s examine a few pros/cons of local.bitcoin.com.
Pros & Cons of Local.Bitcoin.Com
The Pros
- Financial Privacy
- Easy of use
- Created and managed by veterans of the crypto world (9 years+)
The Cons
- Can only exchange BCH (Bitcoin Cash)
- Quite new, but growing
BCH vs BTC
For some crypto enthusiasts, the restriction to use only BCH might be a drag.
But hear me out.
When I traveled the world on 1 Bitcoin (and wrote a book about it), the restriction was to use the value of that bitcoin — not to only spend Bitcoin. Trying to travel the world by just using Bitcoin is like trying to travel while only using 1 brick of gold — impossible.
The real fascination is in trying to survive on 1 BTC while its value fluctuates violently! After all, during my travels, my 1 BTC was worth $4,500 to $20,000 and back again.
Plus, there were other troubles. When BTC was close to $20k — miner fees were high or the bitcoin network was slow. That’s when I changed some of my BTC for BCH and paid with BCH.
That helped me pay for a couple of crypto hostels in Hong Kong, a beer in Shenzhen, and a meal in Angkor Wat.
Bitcoin is the first and most well-known cryptocurrency, but it doesn’t need to be the only one.
If Bitcoin really becomes digital gold (as it looks like it’s on track to do), then we still need digital cash, right?
You don’t see people paying for a beer with gold coins anymore, do you? Even though people still love to buy and hold gold — they use cash for everyday use.
Perhaps it will be the same with BCH; perhaps it will be our well-secured, quick to use, digital cash.
And now, we have an exchange where we can have another benefit for cash: financial privacy.
Local.bitcoin.com gives general users the ease of trading their local fiat for BCH while offering privacy-minded folks the security of keeping their financial freedom.
Final Views on Local.Bitcoin.Com
Without a doubt, local.bitcoin.com is a hassle-free P2P experience for privacy advocates and general users alike.
I wish it existed during my travels! I certainly would have used it to withdraw local currencies in each country I visited. Oh well. Perhaps during my next world trip, haha.
Bottom line, all you need to do is get on the exchange, find someone in your area, and make the transfer.
And the best part: it’s available worldwide. That’s true financial freedom!
